Nightwing: Out of Time 4 The Final Conflict
by Darth Yoshi
Summary: The many lives of Nightwing come together in the series finale.
1. Chapter 1

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 1

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

Titan was the first of them to arrive. 

To human standards, he was godlike; to the gods he was a sight to behold. Tall, muscular and blessed with the hair of his mother, he was a hero by any visual standard. Those that knew him realized very quickly that in his heart he was a hero as well. His legacy demanded him to be a protector of the innocent. 

From his father and mother came his looks and if he were to assign responsibility for his amazing, greater-than-human powers, he would attribute them to his Amazon heritage. His mother had been a princess of the Amazons and she had loved his father, a mere mortal, with all of her heart. An unlikely pairing, they had been passionate about their feelings and their romance had nearly torn the super-hero community apart in the early twenty-first century.

When his father started to age, his mother left him, unable to stand by and watch the man she loved wither away and die. She begged her mother to allow his father to come live on Paradise Island, as the uninformed of the outside world called it, but Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, had refused. No man could step onto the island home of the Amazons, regardless of the circumstances.

That had left Titan in a precarious position, but he was fortunately old enough when it all happened to live on his own. As such he was fortunate enough to never have witnessed his mother's eventual suicide when his father had died a broken, lonely man.

His father, Dick Grayson, had been a super-hero, starting as Robin the Boy Wonder and eventually becoming the one-man fighting machine Nightwing. Nightwing and Titan's mother, Wonder Woman, had fallen in love when they investigated a case that for some strange reason Titan could not recall the details of. Two years after that case had started, Titan had been born in the Watchtower on the moon.

He smiled. The first Earthling born on the moon.

Now he was standing on a rock, or at least what he perceived to be a rock, in the middle of the time stream. All around him, ghostly images of things that had happened, were happening or were to happen floated by him. He did not know why he was where he was or how he had gotten there, but his father had taught him patience. His grandfather, the Batman, had reinforced it.

The second person to arrive was Lightning.

She had the same blonde hair that was characteristic of her mother's family but her eyes were of the more gypsy heritage of her father. She wiped her hands on her long bare legs and stooped over to control her breathing. Running wasn't hard for her; she was in constant contact with the Speed Force. The problem was she hadn't eaten in days as she had been busy working a case with the Justice League. Even now she was sure that her comrades were facing certain doom and she was standing in the middle of time.

The large man that came over to her was exceptionally handsome but she got the feeling she was looking at a cousin or something akin to that. He was definitely non-threatening just by his manner of walk and the easy smile on his face. It was a smile she was sure several women had swooned before.

He spoke to her with the same accent she had heard Wonder Woman use. "You seem as lost as I am," he offered.

She nodded but stayed bent over. She had not expected to break the time barrier and it had taxed her stamina. She thought about reciting the formula, the special equation that allowed members of her family to focus on the Speed Force, but she resisted. The Speed Force could heal her but her father had taught her sometimes it was good to feel pain. It let you know that despite your wondrous powers, you were still human. "I'm Lightning, a member of the Justice League of America," she said offering her hand.

"Really? I'm Titan and I'm a member of the Justice Society of America." He took her hand and gave it a reasonably firm shake. It felt like touching his sister and he immediately dropped the charming act. "I don't remember there being someone like you in the team."

"Well," she observed with an eye to the "sky" that was above them. "We could be from different time periods." She told him what year she thought it was. His response was a few years before. "I would have remembered someone like you, though," she said giving him the once over. He was too damn big to not notice.

"Perhaps we come from different realities," he offered. "On my world, such a thing is called Hypertime."

Lightning stood up and shook off the last of the pain. "Hey, buddy, I'm a speedster. Time travel and alternate realities are what make our day." She took a look around at where they were. "I've never heard of a rock in the middle of time."

"There are those who feel it is called the Rock of Eternity," another voice said.

Darkwing was the third to arrive.

Clad in a costume that both Titan and Lightning found extremely familiar, the man of Asian features approached them. "There are legends of this place on my world," he said in a clam voice. Lightning noticed immediately that the man moved with a grace that she envied. He was fluid, as if he were performing a martial arts exercise with every movement. "Forgive my interruption, but I heard you speaking as I arrived."

"I don't suppose you recognize him?" Titan asked Lightning. She claimed to have never seen him, but the costume was very close to Nightwing's, only darker. "I was about to say the same thing," Titan said with a smile. What a lucky coincidence that they both knew whom the original partner of Batman had been. 

Titan put a thumb to his chest. "Nightwing was my father," he said with a proud smile.

"You're kidding, right?" Lightning asked. "Nightwing was my father and I sure don't remember growing up with you."

"Alas, Nightwing was also my father," Darkwing added. He looked at both of them. "I can see a family resemblance in all of us."

Titan didn't bother to comment on the fact that at least one of them was of Asian descent. But then he considered what the smaller man was saying. Lightning, with her long blonde hair, was obviously full of Caucasian blood while Titan had the olive skin of his mother, who was of marginal Greek origins.

"My mother was Wonder Woman," Titan told them.

"It explains your massive size," Darkwing said before revealing that his mother had been Katana, once a member of Batman's Outsiders.

"My mother was Jessie Quick," Lightning added. "She and my father met when they were together on the Titans."

Within twenty minutes of discussion, not only had the three decided that each one of them came from a different timeline, but two more "children of Grayson" also joined them.

The Gardener, a semi super-hero, reported that his mother had been Poison Ivy, a criminal. He alleged that his mother had captured Nightwing once, trying to lure the Batman into a trap and somehow they had ended up in bed. "The poisons my father absorbed from their lovemaking killed him," he said at the end of his tale.

Titan looked especially worried as he contemplated killer sex. Next to him, Jade Lantern, an obvious member of the Green Lantern Corps, threw back her long hair and explained that her mother had been the original Jade of Infinity, Inc.

The conversations eventually turned to why they were there and how they had arrived. All of them confessed that they had been involved in matters totally unrelated to time travel and the Gardener flat out refused to accept that he had been picked for some cosmic crisis. "I make plants grow; it isn't like I'm going to save the universe," he said as he pulled out a stick of beef jerky.

"I'd figure you to be a vegetarian," Lightning commented.

"Right, eat my playmates. It would be the same as you gobbling up a kitten."

"My power ring can't find an edge to this rock we're on," Jade Lantern said. She reached into one of her belt pouches (many of them could not believe a Green Lantern had a utility belt) and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. The Gardener frowned and started to complain about the burning of innocent plants. She shrugged and lit up.

Titan fanned the smoke away and Darkwing shook his head. "Standing around and breathing poor air will do nothing to resolve our current situation."

"Of that, you are correct, but I wonder if you are willing to do what it takes to change what is and what will be," a cryptic voice said to them. Stepping out of the nothingness in front of them stepped a young girl, all of fourteen perhaps. She was a striking beauty with long red hair and eyes that seemed almost glasslike in their color of green. Everyone agreed that if she continued to develop beauty as she was, by the time she was an adult, no man would be able to resist her charms.

The only disarming characteristic she had was her voice. It was like something from a grave. It unnerved some of them as she spoke. "I am happy to see that all of you were able to make it across the threshold intact."

She was clad in form fitting jumpsuit that was black and yellow with a white cloak over that. Looking at her, everyone got the impression of someone very spiritual. "There are some who cannot pass over so easily."

Titan and Lightning stepped forward. Lightning was the first to address the young girl. "Who are you? Do you know why we are here?"

"You are here because this is where you need to be," the girl said. She smiled and had it not been for the coldness of her voice, it would have likely warmed their hearts. "We are all connected, all joined spiritually by the soul of a great hero."

"We've kind of guessed that all of us have the same father," Lightning said. "Only we aren't from the same timelines."

"Yes," Titan added, trying to make sure he wasn't left out of the conversation. He guessed that of had been raised with a sister, she would have been very much like Lightning.

Jade Lantern threw down her half-smoked cigarette. "We're all from different Hypertime realities."

"Yes, for a lack of a better term, Hypertime appropriately describes what separates all of you from each other," the girl told them. "I am called Oracle and I am a traveler through the passages that are unseen. I am a mutant, a randomly selected metahuman whose parents, Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon, were totally normal."

"You don't know the Barbara Gordons we know then," Darkwing said with a chuckle. "My father used to call her a wildcat."

"My mother said she was a bitch," Gardener added.

"That doesn't explain why we're here, except I bet it has something to do with our father…or fathers," Jade Lantern interjected.

"You are correct wielder of the ring of order," Oracle said. "All of us represent portions of a life that could have been, but was not to be. We are the products of wishful thinking and flights of fancy, travelers in the brooks that are fed from the river of time."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Gardener asked, scratching his head. Jade Lantern, who had already decided she liked her plant-loving relation, nodded her head.

"Look, I have to listen to all of this cryptic crap whenever I try to contact the Starheart," she began. "Can we cut the crap and get to the heart of it all?"

Oracle inclined her head, while Titan threw Jade Lantern a stern look. He wanted to say something to her but then he realized that both she and the Gardener simply represented the free spirit, rebellious side of his father. It had been that side of his personality that had caused him to eventually break free of the Batman and establish himself as Nightwing. Darkwing personified the rigid discipline that their father exposed himself to as he got older. "Of course," Oracle said.

She stepped towards the entire group, her arms hidden in the sleeves of her robes. "All of us are children of liaisons that were not meant to occur in the true scheme of things. We represent the lives that the hero Nightwing would have helped create had he been inclined to follow certain paths. In truth, none of us truly exist except in alternate realities."

The Gardener touched himself. "I'm as real as real can be. I breathe, I love and I laugh. I speak with the plants and they talk back to me."

"Being alive is not the same as being real," Oracle offered. Titan looked at Lightning, who shrugged. She didn't really understand it either.

"I've traveled through Hypertime before," Jade Lantern said. "I'm sure Blondie there has as well. We are still real…"

"No, you are alive and you exist, but you, like me, are the exception and not the rule." Oracle waited for some more comments and when she received none, she continued. "In the true stream of time, there is a man named Nightwing, who still has to find true love and still has to find his true place. In the flow of time, that is the way it is supposed to be, but there is a problem. A villain named Per Degaton engaged in battle with Nightwing and in the course of that fight, Nightwing was thrown from a time machine into the time stream."

"I remember my father talking about that," all of them except the Gardener said. They all looked astonished.

"But not all of you should remember it; in fact, at least one of you, Titan, is the product of what occurred afterwards. Nightwing fell through time, passing through reality after reality, making holes and causing his Hypertime duplicates to spill into the main time stream. For several months now, all of your realities have been part of the one true path of time."

"So, the real Nightwing is still falling through time, from where he was thrown from the time machine?" Darkwing asked. "Will this not continue to cause disruption?"

"It will draw more and more energy from the time stream, eventually causing the start of entropy, the end of time, over one billion years before it is supposed to happen," Oracle told them. "Untold lives will be lost because of it."

"You said I'm a product of all of this," Titan said. "Does that mean my reality is not supposed to exist?"

"You can bite me, scary-chick," the Gardener said. "My reality is my reality and as far as I'm concerned, this has nothing to do with me."

"How can you say that?" Lightning shot back. "This is our father we're talking about! All of our fathers!"

Oracle turned to Titan. "In the true time line right now, the events that led to your creation are occurring. While searching for a girl he suspected was his daughter, Nightwing entered a romantic relationship with Wonder Woman."

"Yeah," Lightning said as she turned slowly towards Titan. "It was during that little fling that my mother let my father know she was pregnant."

Soon the others were telling their stories, even the boisterous Gardener, and they started to find links here and there that connected them all to each other. "But none of us grew up with the other, so we have to come from different time lines."

"Except they are now blurring together…"

"And you see the true problem," Oracle said. "We must gather together to preserve not just time, but our own realities and everything we know. We must return things to the way they are supposed to be. Only we can do it because we are the only ones who have a true stake in the outcome."

"Don't forget the billions of lives at the end of time," the Gardener snorted. He didn't particularly care for people very much but he didn't hate them either. He just didn't concern himself with things that would take place trillions of years after his death.

"What must we do in order to restore order to the universe?" Jade Lantern asked, suddenly serious.

"First, Nightwing must be stopped from his fall through time. Second, we must rescue a young girl who is completely innocent from Per Degaton. Lastly, we must return this child to her proper time. She, like Nightwing, is being pulled through time as well and soon other realities will merge and it will speed entropy up even more." Oracle took a deep breath.

"Her name is Black Robin."


	2. Chapter 2

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 2

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

He continued to fall through time.

Because he was not actually inside time, the minutes and hours meant nothing to him. He had no idea that he had been falling for months, crashing through the barriers that existed to separate the true from the false. 

He remembered the battle with Per Degaton and falling from the time sled and after that his memories were not pictures of what had happened, but more of a collection of sensations, as if he had passed through the physical body of another person. In truth that was a fairly simplistic explanation of what was happening to him.

When someone traveled through time, someone like the Flash for example, they normally headed forward or backward along a hypothetical straight line. If they deviated from that path, moved sideways, they had to alter their physical bodies so that they could pass through the dimensional walls without causing permanent damage. Others did it through science or magic, but the procedure was essentially the same.

Nightwing was doing simply smashing through the barriers, dragging temporal particles from other realities with him. In time, those particles would be rejected by the reality and would eventually find their way to their own dimensions. In the meantime, however, his fall was wreaking havoc with the normal flow of time.

Various versions of himself were popping up in his world, each with their own history that was being blended with his own and with each barrier that fell, more background was added.

But Nightwing didn't know this, he only knew that he was falling and nothing was ever going to make it stop. He was lost in time; no, he corrected himself, he was out of time.

Oracle had outlined her plan to all of them and divided them into groups to pursue the goals she said were necessary in order to achieve the safe return of the normal flow of time. Jade Lantern opened the gateways and very soon, Oracle was alone on the rock.

It took only a few moments before they found her.

The first to arrive was Waverider, emissary of the Linear Men, a group of individuals dedicated to maintain the fluidity and virginity of time. The second was the Phantom Stranger, a "man" dressed in a suit, fedora and cape. Waverider was not a good sign; the Phantom Stranger was an even worse one.

"You have broken too many temporal laws, Oracle," Waverider said, trying his best to sound authorative. Though he possessed a muscular body that was highlighted by photonic flames, he was very much a little boy on the inside. He had once been normal and now he was still learning to be much more. "You've dragged Hypertime variants out of their realities and sent them dashing off into various portions of the time stream. My bosses are not real happy."

"Indeed," the Phantom Stranger remarked in a voice that sounded almost angelic. "Your intentions are noble, but your actions are reckless."

"No more reckless than those my father is accused of making in trying to bring an evildoer to justice," Oracle replied.

"Look, kid, this is way beyond just trying to right a wrong. Nightwing has royally freaked up time," Waverider told her. She said nothing about the reference to her age but instead listened calmly. "I've got orders to correct this by any means possible."

"And what exactly does that mean?" the Phantom Stranger asked, slowly turning towards the Linear Man. "Just because you guard the flow of time does not mean you can decide its path."

"That's our mission, Stranger," Waverider remarked, trying to sound braver than what he was. The truth was that he did not agree with the orders of his superiors, but being a Linear Man sometimes meant doing things you did not want to do. "This doesn't concern you."

"But it does concern me and my siblings," Oracle said. Waverider made to say something but felt ridiculous arguing with a child. The Phantom Stranger must have read his thoughts. 

"Do not let appearances deceive you; young Mary is only a child in body, not in spirit," the Stranger commented. Oracle simply smiled as he continued. "This Per Degaton is the one responsible; he is the one who needs to be brought to justice."

"Protecting time is not about justice, it's about maintaining the status quo," Waverider responded. 

"Which is what we are trying to do. Lightning and Titan are even now pursuing our father, to stop his unauthorized travel through time." Oracle spread her arms wide. "Darkwing had gone to observe and protect the conglomerate Nightwing that even now exists on Earth…"

Waverider nodded but the Phantom Stranger did not reply. The Nightwing that was living in the true time line was merely a combination of all of the Nightwings from the realities the real one had burst through. Because he had been absent from his world, his alternate time line duplicates were drawn into his own. 

Every moment that they remained in the true time line, the more their realities would start to merge and that only added to the inherent instability of time. "Your calculations are off," Waverider told her. 

Before she had come to this rock, Oracle had stopped by the citadel fortress of the Linear Men and had presented her case before them. They had refused to help and had ordered that she was to return to her own time line. Obviously she had refused. "What do you mean?"

"It is why I am here; time is becoming unstable at an exponential rate." The Phantom Stranger waved his arm in the air and a small image appeared. It showed a city on what appeared to be Earth. She did not recognize it. "This is Metropolis in the twenty-third century, approximately two hundred standard years from today."

The scene started to change as the sky turned a stark white, as if a nuclear explosion had occurred just beyond the horizon. Suddenly, the buildings began to crumble and the people melted away into nothing even as they tried to run away. Within ten short seconds, the scene was completely blank.

"At the current rate of decay, time will end two centuries hence. This cannot be allowed," the Phantom Stranger said.

Oracle was speechless and Waverider looked down at the ground. "I've been instructed to detonate a temporal bomb in order to divert time." Oracle was deeply shaken and she started to look even more childlike. "All of the divergent time lines will destroyed and Nightwing will be erased from the continuity."

"And what happens to him? The real one falling through time."

"He will be eliminated," the Stranger answered. "Unless an alternative can be found."

"There is no alternative," Waverider said. "I came to warn you that once this is over, the Linear Men will be coming for you Oracle. You're too dangerous now." Waverider jumped into the air and slipped into a hole in time. 

The young woman, who, on her world, was middle school student Mary Grayson, turned to the Phantom Stranger, tears forming in her eyes. She had only wanted to help, to prove that her gifts were not a curse, but something that could help mankind. She had the unique ability to see into not only the future, but also possible futures. Her parents had been unsure of what to do with her. She was trying to show them that she was fine.

In order to prove she was all right, she had to save the universe. Not a big deal for a girl whose worst problem should have been which boy to go steady with this week. Suddenly, she remembered something that the Phantom Stranger had said. "You said something about an alternative," she said, her voice returning to normal. 

"Nightwing's fall through time is the end result of a problem that started with Per Degaton," the Stranger said before turning away. "Is it better to plug the dam after it leaks, or fix it so it never occurred to begin with? You are a powerful being, Mary Grayson, but you have much to learn before you take your spot among your peers."

Then he was gone and Oracle was all alone.

He was called Per Degaton and he was destined to die a fool.

At least that was what history indicated, but he knew better. In the early 1940's, he had been a lowly technician in the lab of Professor Zee. Zee was a genius, something that Degaton was not, but he was not a tough guy, something Degaton thought he was. With that time machine he had tried several times, unsuccessfully, to become leader of the world. He was defeated time and time again by the Justice Society and later the Justice League. Each defeat was more humiliating than the previous and each time his hatred for super-heroes became even greater.

On one mission to the future something strange had happened; he had encountered a deviation in the time stream. Had he possessed the scientific training and discipline of the man who had created his time machine, he would have realized that what had happened was that the true Per Degaton had traveled back into the past where he would meet his ultimate fate.

The Per Degaton that now contemplated a death he was sure would never happened was a Hypertime alternate.

He did not realize that he was no longer in his own time; he only possessed a hatred for the man who had been his greatest foe, Nightwing. It had been this Per Degaton that had traveled to the future in order to lay out the complicated plan to kill Nightwing in New Metropolis, never realizing that he had crossed into another time line when he had done so.

In fact, he had no idea that he, himself, was a time anomaly, creating tears in time as he moved in and out of centuries from this reality to the next. The Linear Men, Oracle and the Phantom Stranger were even now pursuing the true Nightwing, thinking that he alone was responsible for the destruction that was occurring to the time stream.

But none of that concerned Per Degaton as he walked over to look outside at the streets of 1961 New Orleans. This was the perfect place for him to hide; a period when the Justice Society was inactive and the Justice League members had not even been born. The little girl was still sleeping, the daughter of Nightwing, and for that Per Degaton was thankful. 

When he had traveled to the future, he had sought out Ra's Al Ghul, an immortal villain that had confronted the Batman several times in the Caped Crusader's career. Though Al Ghul found Degaton an oddity, he did provide him with the equipment to carry out his threat against New Metropolis. Then he had explained the origin of the Black Robin.

Andrea was the cloned daughter of both Nightwing and Tara Markov, a super-villain who had once posed as a hero called Terra. She had been created to serve as a doomsday weapon against the Batman. She was to have been trained to become an assassin and she would be sent, at the appropriate age, to gain the trust of the Masked Manhunter. The plan had backfired, though, when one of Al Ghul's operatives suddenly developed a maternal instinct and had kidnapped the young child to raise away from Al Ghul's control. 

The unidentified woman succeeded in raising young Andrea to become a super-hero. When she reached adulthood, she had sought out Bruce Wayne, her "grandfather" who had provided her with the money and equipment necessary to carry out her own personal war on crime as the Black Robin.

The man looking out the window and sucking slowly on the glass of whiskey knew all of this. He also knew that the Legion of Super-Heroes had captured him for his crimes, even though Earthian, the killer of Black Robin, had managed to get away. Per Degaton had been taken to the 31st century to stand trial for violating several time laws, but he had managed to escape through the aid of none other than Ra's Al Ghul.

What he didn't know was the true circumstances that had occurred to bring him to this point. He had no inclination of the twists and turns time had taken to bring him to this sweaty hotel room with a little girl he had to admit, but only privately, he did not have the guts to outright murder. Adults were one thing and even killing in an impersonal way (such as his plot to blow up New Metropolis), but even with the added courage of whiskey he could not kill her.

He sighed and reached down for the pack of cigarettes he had purchased an hour before. He had left, hoping that the little girl would simply wake up and run away, but she had remained sleeping. He lit up and inhaled, wondering lightly if he was really supposed to die the way he had read in the history books at the library. It didn't make sense. 

Nothing made sense anymore.


	3. Chapter 3

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 3

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

Lightning was the first to spot her father.

She was surprised that Titan was able to keep up, but she had been able to impart some of the Speed Force to him, using a trick he had learned from the Flash. His magically enhanced body easily accepted the kinetic energy that Lightning supplied to him, but it was something she had to keep doing constantly.

While she ran, kept them on course and kept the conduit to the Speed Force open, Titan used his analytical mind to study what he had learned so far about the man whom he assumed was his father. In all, he had determined that no less than seven time lines had become intertwined, starting to merge into one. At some point in the future, all of the children of Nightwing would either become one being, cease to exist or co-exist in one reality. That would certainly mean a lot of child support for Dick Grayson he joked to himself.

It helped to try and maintain a sense of humor in all of this because if he was going to die, he wanted to do with a smile on his face. "Die proudly," was the Amazon phrase. 

According to Oracle, the rips in time had started as far back as the early 1940's, and moved steadily forward all of the way to the era where Black Robin was a member of the Justice League. Throughout all of those intervening years, different Hypertime versions of Nightwing started popping up in the main time line, dragging a little piece of themselves with them. It got so bad that the Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st century had to intervene after they detected a high rate of time distortions. 

The Legion had assumed that Nightwing being moved forward in time, beyond a point where he was supposed to die, had caused the distortions. Titan was not so sure that the explanation given by the Legion was the correct one. "I assume you want me to catch him?" Titan asked. He was amazed at how fast the words left his lips. 

Lightning nodded. "I'll give you the speed but I'm not strong enough to catch something of his mass busting through time. You need to be careful, though."

Titan was curious and asked what the problem was. She smiled as they put on a little extra burst of speed. "There are some schools of temporal thought that theorize that the longer a body accelerates through the time stream, the more unstable the space-time continuum is throughout their mass. In other words, there is a possibility that stopping him suddenly may open up a wormhole."

The son of the Amazing Amazon did not like that thought at all. "Am I fast enough to escape?"

"Nope. But if it makes you feel better, you'll kill all of us, so be gentle," she said as she placed a hand on his forearm. "Brother."

He felt even more of the Speed Force pour into his body and it was like drinking ambrosia. He felt alive and charged and couldn't wait to sprint forward. He wondered if it was like this for all speedsters and if it was, no wonder they were all drawn to the Speed Force as a final destination when their mortal lives were over. When he got back home, he would make it a point to talk about the experience with Hermes.

He concentrated on the falling image of his father, realizing that in the spaces of time, there was no up or down and that he was not actually falling. He was instead moving in a direction other than forward or backward. He took a moment to look down at his sandaled feet and was amazed that they were still holding together. Unlike the costume he wore, which was based upon ancient Greek armor, his shoes were not magical. 

His mother had often complained about how he would wear out shoes as he grew. It occurred to him then that if they were not successful in this venture, then he would never see her again. That thought bothered him greatly.

He had never considered himself a "momma's boy", but he supposed deep down inside he was. His father and mother had both loved him, but his father's mortality always seemed to be a dividing line between them. He supposed that was why he took more after his mother in his super-heroing; besides, he had never thought Grandpa Bruce was all that scary anyway.

Lightning watched as Titan surged forward to catch hold of the man that could have been her father. She wondered if he was as much of a bastard as her real one was. She cursed herself, realizing that she was being unfair. Her father had not been ready to be a parent and the simple fact had been that while he liked screwing her mother, he had never actually claimed to be in love with her.

Dick Grayson had tried his best to be a father, but it had actually been her Uncle Wally, as in Wally West the Flash, who had been the biggest influence in her life. Jessie Chambers, her mother and the person whom she got her name from, had something of a volatile personality and she and her father just never seemed to get along.

When she looked at Titan, she was reminded of the woman that her father had eventually married, Donna Troy. But that wasn't possible because Oracle had told her that Donna Troy was dead. In Lightning's time line, Donna became a stepmother to her and the two of them had been reasonably close. Yet Titan's mother had been Wonder Woman, an icon of the super-hero community and someone Lightning had worked with on several occasions. She could not see the Amazon princess falling in love with her father.

She continued to run and watched as Titan reached Nightwing and demonstrated agility and sensitivity that his giant frame seemed to make impossible. 

Nightwing became aware he was no longer alone and he opened his eyes and felt like, for a moment, that he was looking into a mirror. A man with vaguely familiar features and long dark hair was running to get in front of him. At least he thought he knew who this man was or who he might be; his mind was becoming numb to all of the sensations it had experienced.

Titan caught Nightwing in his arms, matching his speed to the tumbling hero's and very gently began to bleed off enough speed to stop the forward momentum, but not enough to drop him into another reality. He wasn't exactly sure of the physics involved, but Lightning had explained that if you stop in the time stream, there was a chance you could "fall in".

"Easy there," Titan said and Nightwing could feel the Superman-like muscles ripple and flex has the giant of a man slowed them down. He tried to speak but it had been so long since he had used his vocal cords, they were paralyzed. "Don't try to speak, you have time shock."

Nightwing only nodded and allowed the man to do the work. He was being rescued, but he had so many questions that curiosity was getting the best of him. When the final slowed to a "trot", Nightwing turned his head to see a woman approaching with a familiar ponytail. He managed to croak out a single word. "Jessie?"

Lightning at first thought that he had recognized her as his daughter, but then realized that he probably thought she was her mother. They did look very much alike, especially in costume. "That's my name, but I'm not who you think I am," she said. "Like Titan said, don't try to speak. As you slow down and you'll start to feel normal again."

They made a u-turn on the highway of time and started to make their way back. "That was easy," Titan said. "Too easy."

Lightning had to agree. If Nightwing was causing all sorts of temporal rifts and tears, they should have encountered anomalies out the wazoo. "You thinking what I'm thinking, brother?" She had taken to calling him that ever since Oracle revealed the true nature of their existence.

"He's not the problem, the real problem. It's like as he passes through a reality, Degaton is following, dragging his…his…time virus."

"Deg…degaton…" Nightwing managed to get out.

Lightning put a hand on his forehead. "God! You are so stubborn! Quit trying to talk!" She removed her hand and imparted a little more speed to Titan as he was starting to slow down. "We know from the historical record that jackass here attacked Per Degaton when he was stranded in the early 21st century."

"According to my grandmother, who fought him in the 1940's," Titan added, "there is no evidence that he ever did anything like that. There were never any reported sightings of him past the mid-twentieth century."

"And I've been to the future several times…"

"Ah, but the future of your own timeline," Titan pointed out. "All of our timelines seem to branch off at the point where Nightwing encountered Per Degaton."

"Fell off time machine…" Nightwing wheezed out. 

"We know," Lightning answered. "Now shut up!" She wondered how her mother had ever fallen in love with a man who simply would not listen. Of course, he had never claimed to love her…

"The simple fact is that it isn't the true Per Degaton; it's a Hypertime duplicate with a faulty time machine. He somehow ended up in the true timeline where he encountered Nightwing." He looked down at the weak-eyed hero. It had probably been a long time since he had the "time" to sleep.

Lightning considered the revelation. If the true Nightwing had somehow been dropped into Hypertime, with a residual time anomaly attached to him, then it was possible as he tumbled through the barriers between realities, his duplicates would end up assuming his life. What was happening though was that instead of a multitude of different lives, they were compounding into one "super" life. 

And that was what was draining, in essence, time. "He's the symptom of the disease," she concluded. It could have been any hero that would have fallen off of the time machine and the result would have, possibly been the same. "The problem is that crappy time machine the duplicate Degaton is using."

"Which is why in Black Robin's future, the Legion of Super-Heroes investigated. They thought it was Nightwing because he wasn't a normal time traveler." Titan realized then that his time line had started when that Nightwing had been taken back to the past. It was after that adventure in the future, in Black Robin's time line that he had come back and fallen in love with Princess Diana.

"My God this is confusing," Lightning said, exasperated. 

"Who are you?" Nightwing asked, his voice a little stronger. Titan looked down and smiled. "My name is Titan and this is my…sister, Lightning. We are from the future."

"Yeah, we came to save you after you were foolish enough to jump on an operating time machine," the speedster added. "Were you always so reckless?" She mentally smacked herself; of course he was! He had, after all, gotten her mother pregnant on a one-night stand. Yet, when she looked into the face of this man, she could almost immediately tell this was not the man who had been her father. The man who had contributed biological material for her conception had been a hero, but he had never really grown up. The rebellious side of him that had been emulated by his younger stepbrother Jason Todd was what had led him to seduce Jessie Quick.

She wondered where in Hypertime her reality had branched off. No doubt it was sometime in his past because there was a maturity that radiated from this man that Jessie had never felt around her father.

Titan, on the other hand, was surprised by how much this man he was carrying acted like his own father. "I don't like Hypertime adventures," Nightwing said before biting his tongue. "Ow!"

"Neither do we, but it can't be helped," Titan responded.

There was a pause while Nightwing wetted his whistle. He was getting his strength back in leaps and bounds as they moved to approach the main timeline. "You said I fought an alternate Degaton?"

Lightning nodded. "That's out theory at least. Don't worry, though, we have a Green Lantern tracking him through time with the son of Poison Ivy."

"Poison Ivy? She ends up having a child? Who would be dumb enough to attempt to have sex with…" He caught the grin on Titan's face and recognized it immediately. It looked like his father's face. He quickly turned to Lighting and remembered that he had thought she was Jessie Quick. "Oh, no…"

"Let's just say that you have a very checkered future ahead of you," Titan said, chuckling slightly.

Nightwing shook his head. "I don't believe it…who is your mother?" he asked Titan.

"Wonder Woman."

Nightwing couldn't help but smile and Lighting gave him a stern look that melted the grimace away. "But you're not really my children, right?"

"Now that sounds like my father," Lightning commented. 

"I take it the version of me you know isn't very nice," Nightwing said.

"He's an ass."

Jade Lantern lit another cigarette and Darkwing commented that she was killing herself. She held up her power ring. "Cures cancer," was all that she said. 

The Gardner paced the rooftop. "You're sure that he's in this time period?"

"The ring doesn't lie, but there is a problem. He's not alone; he's being tracked. His temporal signature is all wacky, making me wonder if he isn't the problem and good-old dad is being made the scapegoat." She stepped over to the edge of the rooftop and looked down into the streets of Kennedy-era New Orleans. 

"You said he is being tracked?" Darkwing asked.

"Yeah, someone powerful. The ring tells me that it's another Green Lantern."

"I thought you hate being called Green Lantern," Gardner asked, sarcastically. Jade Lantern smiled; it was like having an annoying little brother, something she had always wanted. 

"I do, but it is what I am. Member of the Corps in good standing. Also the best looking one since Hal Jordan." She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. "Now there was a hunk of Corpsman. He could charge my battery…"

"I'm so happy that I have fans, even in this time period," a voice said from above them. The three heroes immediately split apart and looked up to see a green glow that seemed to encompass the entire sky."

"I do not believe it," Darkwing said, shielding his eyes.

"Oh, we are so dead," Gardner replied.

Jade Lantern instead threw down her cigarette. "If it's a fight he wants, it's a fight he'll get."

Parallax, the former Hal Jordan, shook his head slowly. "I follow the path of a deviant traveler and what do I find but a lost little Lantern." He held out his hand. "Give me your ring and I will let you live in this time period, or any time period."

"Sure, right after you kiss my left buttocks, pal," she said, thinking it was ironic that only a moment ago she was fully engaged in a fantasy dealing with just that. "You want the ring, come and get it."


	4. Chapter 4

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 4

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

"You are a variant, hardly worthy of my attention. I have more important things to worry about," Parallax said, folding his arms across his chest. He gazed at the motley crew of heroes that stood below him. His knowledge of the universe allowed him to instantly place who they were.

The quaking man in the plant-motif costume was the Gardener, the son of Nightwing and Poison Ivy from a reality where the former partner of Batman let his libido control his actions as opposed to his intellect. Parallax made a mental note to ensure that such a thing would never happen in his recreated universe.

The Asian man in the dark costume was Darkwing, the product of the union between Katana and Nightwing. A skilled warrior and ardent student of the _Art of War_, he was a powerful force to be reckoned with if you were a thug on the street. Parallax was much more than a common thug, he was a god among ants.

The ring bearer was the most unique of them. She was the daughter of Nightwing and Jade, the daughter of the original Green Lantern. He tried to feel some kinship to the woman who now defiantly challenged him, but there was nothing there. He had already been through so much, had changed so greatly that his former life as Hal Jordan, and greatest of the Green Lanterns seemed nothing but a dream now. 

As a Green Lantern she posed a very slight threat to his plan to recreate the universe, but only because she had crossed out of her own timeline and into his. Normally he did not concern himself with variants as the nature of Hypertime allowed for such crossings. By all accounts her time in this universe would be extremely brief.

Still, he had been tracing a time trail that just wasn't right and this was what he had homed in on. If he were going to wipe the slate clean, he had to make sure there were no potential problems. "I will offer you once more chance; surrender the ring and I will let you live."

Jade Lantern hovered between the heroes below and villain above. In her reality, Hal Jordan had died several years before in a battle with Sinestro, but an adventure she had undergone some months back had informed her of another Hal Jordan in another universe that had gone mad. That Hal Jordan, driven insane by his despair over the destruction of his beloved Coast City by Mongul, had gone to Oa, home of the Guardians of the Universe. In a fierce battle he had murdered not only the Guardians, but had also destroyed the Corps. Then in a final act of betrayal, he entered the main power battery that supplied power to all Green Lanterns and absorbed the energy, becoming Parallax.

Parallax then tried to recreate the entire universe in his own image, trying to undo the wrongs of the past. In his efforts to do so, he had traveled through time to many eras to track down any and all Green Lanterns that might have interfered with his plans. She had always been glad that it had not occurred in her universe.

It was obvious who this man was. The green power he radiated could be cut wit a knife; it hung in the air like a foul stench. "Go spit, Jordan!"

Parallax frowned and rubbed his chin. "Why do you resist, little Lantern? I can give you a life that you previously only dreamed of. A universe where your Uncle Todd never went insane and you were forced to kill him."

Jade Lantern turned away and bit her lip to keep the tears from flowing. Her uncle, her mother's brother, had been a hero named Obsidian until his dark powers ate away at his moral compass. Right after she had taken on the mantle of Jade Lantern from her mother, her uncle had kidnapped her father, someone whom he saw as having defiled her mother. In the ensuing battle, she had to make a choice between letting her father die and killing her uncle. 

Obviously Parallax knew what choice she had made. "You can't tempt me, you devil! You betrayed your oath!"

"Now may not be the time to make him mad," the Gardener said with a shaky voice.

"You would do well to listen to the fat little non-hero," Parallax said. Gardener straightened up and puffed his chest out but the former Green Lantern ignored him. "I will not ask again," he warned, holding his hand out, palm up.

"You do not belong in this time period, either," Darkwing pointed out. "You are as much an anomaly as we are. It does not serve the cause of justice for you to pass sentence upon us when our mission is so important."

"I really do not have tie to listen to any of you. I have a universe to recreate." Darkwing wanted to correct Parallax and inform him of his future failure, of how he would be defeated utterly. Persons who were able to travel through Hypertime often eventually came across the legend of Hal Jordan. 

"A universe that will not last if we do not complete our mission," Darkwing said, stepping a little closer. Parallax, intrigued by the bravery of this hero, lowered himself to the rooftop, even as Jade Lantern eyed him with a smoldering rage. Parallax told him to continue his line of reasoning. "As I am led to believe, in order for your plan to work, you will have to have a completely unobstructed time stream to start out with."

"I'm still listening," was the only reply he received.

"We are here in this time period, in this time line, to rescue a variant that has been forced into this reality by a villain." He waited for any reaction, but Parallax looked completely and totally bored. "Her presence, added with certain events our comrades are pursuing in other time periods, have resulted in an absorption of time."

"I doubt it."

"It's true!" the Gardener blurted out. 

"If you don't believe us, travel to the future, the far future," Jade Lantern said, daring the other Corpsman. "We'll wait, you arrogant son of a…"

Parallax faded away from view and the Gardener started asking of they had won. Darkwing had to remind him that a battle had not been fought. Fifteen seconds later, Parallax reappeared, a grim look on his face. "How is this possible?"

"Our father, the hero you know as Nightwing, was trying to stop a villain named Per Degaton when he was thrown from the time machine they were traveling on. As a result, he has been bursting through dimensional boundaries, pulling timelines together."

"Fool. I will find him and eliminate him from the timeline…"

"You bastard!" Jade Lantern said, creating a giant emerald fist with her ring. The fist struck Parallax and knocked him down onto the rooftop. "You'll have to kill me before you touch my father!"

The Gardener looked around for some plants to control, but there was nothing in the immediate area. Even some common lawn grass would be a weapon, but he was too far from anything green. Instead, he screamed and flung himself at the fallen form of Parallax. Before he could land a basic professional-wrestling take down on the hero-turned-villain, Parallax turned his head and faced his foe. His eyes flared bright green as Parallax called the power of the Oan main power battery to him. 

Jade Lantern could feel the tug on her ring, but her anger and willpower were enough, for the moment, to prevent Jordan from getting control of it. She brought the fist up again and pounded Parallax hard enough to break the roof. In a puff of dust, Parallax fell into the building proper.

"Damn you and your anger, woman! We could have resolved this without fighting! If we could have shown our enemy that our causes were the same, we could have allied!" Darkwing did not wait for her response to his verbal barrage. Instead, he jumped into the hole after Parallax, realizing that the former Green Lantern was going to be very angry.

The Gardener grabbed a hold of Jade Lantern's arm. "Cops!" he called out and she heard the sirens of approaching police vehicles. "I don't get along with cops very well," he told her.

"How did you ever become a super-hero?"

"My mother is Poison Ivy! Give me a break!"

Jade Lantern considered their options and realized that the appearance of Parallax had really messed up their plans. If Jordan had pursued Per Degaton instead of her, then maybe he could have taken care of the problem for them. Then she reasoned that if Parallax had found Per Degaton, he would have killed him and the little child Andrea. 

Jordan was insane with power and grief, a terrible duo to deal with. "I've got to help Darkwing," she said as she flew into the hole. The Gardener cursed and kicked at the rocks that were laid on the rooftop. He did not consider himself a true super-hero; he was just a guy who could control plants that sometimes helped people out.

He wasn't at all into the risking his life philosophy; he enjoyed breathing, eating meat and watching pretty girls on the internet. He didn't belong here. "Stupid idiots," he mumbled as he looked the hole. A sink and a toilet came flying out and went over the edge of the roof. He raced over to the edge and watched at they crashed on the street below. A car horn honked and someone screamed.

A blast of plaster dust and green light belched out of the hole and the Gardener cursed just the way his mother used to whenever one of his "uncles" woke up dead in the morning. Then, resigned that he needed Jade Lantern to get back home, he moved to the hole and slowly clambered down into it.

"Welcome home," Titan said as they entered the apartment of Dick Grayson. Nightwing half-expected to see one of his Hypertime duplicates.

"If we don't fix things, then yes, you will start seeing yourself, possibly thousands of yourself walking around everywhere." Lightning moved around the apartment, examining everything from the pictures to the books that were lying about. He seemed so much like her father that it was troubling her. "As soon as you came back into this time line, the others were sent back to their own. That won't last, especially the way the time lines are intermixing."

Nightwing removed his mask and told the two of them to sit down. When Lightning hesitated, he asked her what her problem was. "I can't figure out why you didn't love my mother."

Nightwing was at a loss for words and he could not come up with any explanation. He pretty much understood what was going on and how foolhardy it had been for him to hop onto Per Degaton's time machine. From the history lesson he had received, he knew that a Hypertime version of himself had ended up in the past and had made his way to the future. That duplicate had been Titan's father.

"I can't answer that," he said. "I don't love your mother and in fact, I've never been interested in her as anything more than a friend. " He sighed and sat down on his couch. At least it seemed familiar. "I knew she sort of had a crush on me at one time, but she had one on Wally, too."

"That helps," Lightning said. 

"Exactly how did I end up with your mother?" Nightwing asked her. She replied she wasn't sure, but that it happened one night at the Titans Tower.

"This makes no sense…"

Titan disagreed and made a point of popping his neck before he continued. "It seems to me, from the history that Oracle explained to us that most of the adventures that have occurred in this timeline, ever since the original encounter between you and Per Degaton, seem to coincide with what I know about my father. It is almost as if all of this started with my timeline and yours being mixed together. My father did travel back to World War 2 and he was aided by Zatanna to get back to the future. My father also went to the future and Black Robin was murdered there.

"It was something he didn't like to talk about…"

"Maybe we are in your timeline," Lightning suggested. "It would certainly make sense."

Titan shrugged. "There are a lot of things that do and don't make sense."

Nightwing moved around the apartment and then said he was going to go shower and change into a fresh costume. "Lightning, keep an eye out for any of my duplicates," he ordered. As a speedster she had the ability to pick up faint fluctuations in the time stream that others would normally miss. 

After he had left the room, Lighting sighed heavily and plopped into a chair. "My mother never mentioned anything about my dad and Wonder Woman being an item."

"My mother and father had a very passionate love for each other," Titan replied with a large smile. He continued to look around the apartment. "My father gave up his apartment soon after they started dating. I've never seen this before. He was a pig."

"You have no idea…"

"He's not your father."

She closed her eyes and rubbed her face with her hands. She was tired, she knew, and she really needed to get some sleep. The Speed Force was limitless, but her endurance wasn't. "I know, but he's not your either."

There was a scream from the bedroom. It wasn't a howl of fear but more of a rancorous bellow of shock and disbelief. Lightning was in the room before the sound had finished striking the walls. Titan was not far behind.

Nightwing was there, standing in his costume bottoms, shaking as he held a piece of paper in front of him. Lighting asked what was wrong and the hero tried to mouth the words eh needed to speak, but his voice was gone. 

"Calm down," Titans said as his massive body absorbed the doorway. "What is it?"

Lightning took several steps towards him and reached out for the paper that was being crushed in his quaking hand. She pulled it away, seeing a look of disbelief in his eyes and realizing he was in great emotional pain, tried to offer some sort of comforting words. He sat back, shaking his head and she opened the paper up. Titan came up behind her and he read it. He gave a quick "No!" and she realized that he was becoming upset as well.

The paper was a clipping from a newspaper that told of the death and burial of Donna Troy, one of Dick Grayson's best friends and the woman who would have been Titan's aunt. 

The somber moment was interrupted by a baritone voice that commanded respect. "What is going on here?" the Batman said as he stepped into the doorway.

Lighting turned. "Grandpa?"

Titan, shocked by the sight of his father's father so youthful gasped. "Grandfather!"

Batman's eyes narrowed. He looked at Nightwing and stepped between the other heroes to stand in front of his son, or at least the man who looked like his son. "Nightwing, what is it?"

Nightwing looked up. "Donna…"

"Has been dead for several months. This isn't anything new." He studied the other man and saw that he was filthy and unkempt. "You haven't showered for days, have you?"

"You wouldn't believe it," Lightning said.

"I didn't ask you," Batman replied. Lighting, who had never taken much gruff from her grandfather, stepped forward but Titan held her back. Batman returned his attention to his son. "Dick?" he asked. He reasoned that if Nightwing was sitting in half a costume in his apartment in front of the other two, then they no doubt knew who he was as well. 

"Bruce…she's dead…Donna is dead…"

"Yes."

"How?"

"We don't have time for that right now; you're due at JSA headquarters…you're late in fact…"

"For what?"

"Jessie's pregnancy test results; Dr. Mid-Nite called you earlier," Batman said just before there was a thump behind him. He turned to see the large man waving his hand in front of the woman's face. She had obviously fainted. Batman looked at him and Titan gave him a weak smile. "Let me guess, Young Hercules."

Titan shook his head. "No, but I doubt you're going to be pleased with the truth."

Oracle stepped out of the rip in time and stood in the warehouse that housed the time machine. There was no noise so she assumed that she was alone and she moved around the boxes as quietly as she could to verify that fact. Satisfied that she had been correct, she moved to a chair placed in corner and sat down. Traveling through time was tough on her, especially when time streams were mingling with each other. The currents of time mixed and created small whirlpools.

It hadn't been so long since she first discovered her powers and she was still getting used to them. The Sentinels of Magic were helping her along, telling her that she would one day be more powerful than she could possibly imagine. She found that hard to believe, especially when she was too busy fighting acne and homework. Plus trying to hide her powers from her father and mother. They would have freaked royally if they had known what she could do.

The simplest explanation of why she could do what she did was that every once in awhile, there are born humans that are something extraordinary. Certainly her father had been ordinary and her mother had been, well she thought, handicapped for lack of a better term, until Martian science had corrected her broken spinal cord.

Blowing out, she stood up and smoothed out her costume, wishing she were in a T-shirt and shorts instead. She made her way to the time machine, sensing it from a few meters away. She didn't need to touch it to realize that it was not what it was supposed to be. It wasn't just damaged; it was also from another reality. 

That explained so much! A duplicate Per Degaton had somehow damaged his time machine and started tearing through time. Add to that a stubborn hero falling between dimensions and you had all of the makings for disaster. Her choices were now very limited. She considered them for a few moments and then heard a door open in the far end of the building.

Quickly she jumped behind some stacked tires as a man with red hair, carrying a bag, came into view. She gasped as she recognized Per Degaton.


	5. Chapter 5

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 5

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

Waverider slowed his forward momentum, gradually allowing himself to stop at a point in time that was weaker than the surrounding points. In his arms he cradled the time bomb, a device that would, when properly calibrated and programmed, single out a persona and erase them completely from the time line in which the bomb was placed. Because of the very nature of time, that person's accomplishments, if they were necessary for the natural progression of Creation, would be attributed to someone else. 

It was sort of like, Waverider guessed, when you went in to the office and told the boss either they paid you more money or you were walking. The boss always replied the same way, with the same knowing smile. "Go ahead; there's a hundred people waiting to take your place."

This duty did not sit well with Waverider, but many of tasks assigned to a junior Linear Man were never pleasant. This bomb, when detonated, would sever the life of Richard Grayson from the continuity and it would be as if he never existed. John and Mary Grayson would never have a child. The Batman would eventually select someone else to be his partner. Barbara Gordon would find another true love. So many lives were about to be changed.

"You hesitate," the Phantom Stranger said as he once again stepped out of a hole in reality to stand before Waverider. "You question the morality of your actions."

"No, I'm trying to decide what time I want the bomb to go off," the Linear Man lied. He found the Phantom Stranger too eerie even for someone who traversed through multiple dimensions. "Why are you so concerned? I would think that so long as time is set right, you and all of the Lords of Order or whatever would be happy."

The Stranger's voice remained impassive. "If this were necessary, then yes, but in your efforts to make things right, the Linear Men are not looking at what is wrong. You ignore coincidence and chance, all parts of the wonder of Creation."

"Dick Grayson is an anomaly. He has caused great damage to the timeline and to other timelines. It could eventually cause the complete collapse of time," Waverider said, pretending to be adjusting the sensitivity on the bomb. 

"You recite the mantra of your superiors, but what is it that you feel?" Waverider replied that the idea of eliminating someone completely from time was not appealing, but that he had an obligation to respect and obey his superiors. He went on to point out that he had not always been the most obedient of Linear Men and that he was trying to change his image and attitude.

"And you following me around, questioning every little thing I do is not helping," Waverider concluded.

"Is it not possible that young Grayson is merely the symptom of the disease?"

Waverider shook his head. "No! I'm not listening to this again! You and Oracle! It's like you have a personal interest in this, Stranger! I've never heard of you taking such time out of your busy schedule to attend to the affairs of one individual." Waverider paused for a moment and then added, "I suppose Grayson is your father as well?"

The Stranger did not answer immediately, but seemed to contemplate something that had nothing to do with their conversation. The Stranger's head turned upwards and then slowly returned to face Waverider. "Even now, young heroes are traversing through time trying to save this man and you consider it nothing."

"I didn't say that…"

"But it what you are attempting to convince yourself of, that their efforts are for naught and that your superiors, who would not hesitate to murder in the name of protecting time, are correct." The Stranger shook his head. "Have you lost sight of your own humanity?"

The Linear Man took in a deep breath and mumbled something under his breath. "What are they doing?"

"Two have stopped Nightwing's tumble through time and have taken him home, only the realities are in flux. He is walking through a reality made of many…"

"Which is why I have to do what I'm doing," Waverider said. He held the bomb out towards the Stranger. "The longer we hesitate, the more likely it is that all of this damage will be irreversible. This is the only way to make absolutely sure."

"Three others are trying to rescue a fourth and are now engaged in battle with Parallax. They believe that this is a cause worthy of facing off against a god," the Stranger replied. 

"We have to be sure!"

"And young Mary Grayson is risking her life, preparing to engage Per Degaton in an effort to keep Nightwing from traveling through time to begin with," the Stranger finished,

"What? She's just a kid! Her powers are nowhere near developed yet!" Waverider cursed and looking into the time stream, trying to see if he could catch a glimpse of the events as they were unfolding. Unfortunately for him the flux of the anomalies was preventing him from observing anything. "Okay, Phantom Stranger, what would you have me do? I will give you one chance."

The Stranger nodded. "You have wisdom beyond your years, Waverider." He waved his arm and a portal appeared. "Mary Grayson needs your aid most of all. Go to her and discover the truth."

"The truth?"

"Travel through and see," the Stranger replied. Waverider squinted his eyes, trying to discern if this were a trick, but decided that even thought the Stranger was odd and…strange…he was also one of the good guys. 

"I'm trusting you; if this is some sort of wild goose chase, I will come back here and set that bomb off," Waverider promised. 

"Trust that it will not be necessary."

Batman told Titan that he had been correct. "You're right, I didn't like the answer."

Titan winced under the scrutiny of his grandfather. He had just spent the last ten minutes explaining that he was the son of Nightwing and Wonder Woman, while Lightning was the daughter of Nightwing and Jessie Quick. Batman had listened and not made a sound or a move until the Amazonian man finished. "We are trying to fix things."

"I don't like it when this Hypertime garbage occurs," Batman said as he turned to regard Nightwing. "Are you my son or not?"

"I'm the real thing, Bruce," was the reply. Nightwing's eyes were red and swollen from where he had been crying. "Is Donna really dead?"

"Yes."

Nightwing shook his head. "If I had been here…"

"You were," Batman replied as he kneeled down to check Lightning's pulse again. It was strong and he nodded to himself. "How do we fix this?" Batman said as he turned to Titan. "I've spent the last few weeks counseling my son on his romantic ways and none of those talks involved anything about Princess Diana."

"I don't see where it is any of your business," Wonder Woman said. Titan gave a little scream at the sight of his mother now standing in the doorway. 

"Does everyone just walk in here?" Nightwing said as he stood up and moved towards his nightstand to get a tissue. "Let me guess, Princess, you live here."

"We had not discussed that part of our relationship…"

"Mom?" Titan asked. Wonder Woman turned to him and her eyes went wide. She saw the immediate family resemblance. 

The window to the bedroom opened and another Batman stepped through. "What the hell?"

Lightning's eyes popped open as she felt the time flux washed over her. Attuned to the Speed Force, she had a sense of the way things were supposed to be. "Oh, buddy," she said realizing that something bad was going on. She quickly recited the formula that her mother had taught her, who had learned it from her father. There was nothing special about the formula except it allowed speedsters of her family line to concentrate and attune themselves to the Speed Force. 

Speed energy flowed into her and she was up and moving. Her heightened senses took in the whole seen. Nightwing was half dressed and obviously distressed over learning about the recent death of one of his best friends. Wonder Woman, aghast, was staring at Titan who looked extremely uncomfortable. Finally, two Batmen from two different realities were facing off with each other. It was almost worth it, she thought, to watch them duke it out, but she knew they had to move. 

Too many key figures from the different realities were too close together. Lighting grabbed Nightwing and pushed him into the bathroom and then went back for Titan. After depositing him, she went into the bedroom and called the speed of the remaining the three to herself. It was hard to do, drawing kinetic energy into her body and sending it back to the Speed Force. After slowing the others sufficiently, she returned to the bathroom.

"I just got us about sixty seconds to get the hell out of here," she said, casting a quick glance into the bedroom. "Do you feel it?" she asked them.

Nightwing was slipping on a new shirt. "I feel something and I don't like it. This whole reality is screwed up. There is no way Donna could be dead."

"Man, does mom look pissed," Titan said and Lighting realized that he was no longer the lumbering, heroic figure he had been. In the presence of his larger-than-life mother, he had become very docile. 

"We need to get someplace safe, get you away from all of this while things get sorted out," she told Nightwing. "Any ideas?"

"The Justice League Watchtower on the moon," he told her. 

"I hate the moon," she whispered. "No damn gravity, no place to run…"

Fifteen minutes later and with their excess speed bled off, the trio stood in front of the Justice League transporter in Midway City. "Don't you have to be a League member to use this?" Titan asked. "At least, that's the way it is in my reality."

"There are some persons, myself included, that have been given special access," Nightwing said as he took off his glove and placed it on a small, lighted pad. It flashed red several times and then turned green, indicating that access was granted. "I'll have to go up and then I'll allow it to transport the two of you," he said.

The two younger heroes nodded that they understood and watched Nightwing enter the transporter. There was a quick hum and a flash of blue-white light and then he was gone. Titan put his hands on his hips. "Ever seen such a drastic merging of realities?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "No, and to be honest, I've spent a lot of time thinking about it. It's almost as if whatever has been the problem is getting worse."

"What could cause that?"

"When realities merge, it is like a domino effect, but not this quick," she commented while she shook her head. "It is possible that something is happening in the past, making the original event even worse than what it was."

Titan could no longer hold it in and he essentially belched out his theory of an alternate-universe Per Degaton. Lighting, for her part, listened carefully and nodded at all of the right places. "It is possible and in fact makes a lot of sense."

"More sense than you can imagine," another voice said from behind them. Both heroes turned quickly, fists held at the ready. Before them stood Per Degaton, clad in his black and red uniform with the large "D" on the left breast. He stood in a non-defiant pose next to a blonde-haired little girl. "I guess you weren't expecting me?"

"Let the child go," Titan said, his biceps flexing. 

The villain let her free, but she did not immediately run away, but instead looked up at him. Lightning guessed that it was most likely a form of Stockholm Syndrome, where the kidnapped begin to bond with their captors. "Come here, honey," she said, getting down on her haunches so she wouldn't appear so imposing.

With a little reluctance, the blonde-haired child slowly made her way to the speedster. Per Degaton watched her with a wistful glance and then he returned his attention to the huge hero facing him. "Her and I have been together for nearly a year, jumping from time period to time period," he said in a faraway voice. "I was going to kill her, you know…I was…"

"Bastard," Titan said coldly. "Do you know what my people do to child-killers?"

"She's alive; in fact, I grew quite fond of her. The little scamp grows on you quickly. After the first few hours, I knew I couldn't do it, couldn't bring myself to murder her," he said and then his chest deflated as he breathed out. "You know I'm not the guy that's supposed to inhabit this timeline?"

"I guessed it," Titan replied as he watched the little girl fall into Lightning's arms. 

"Then you know I'm causing all kinds of hell with time," he said. "I brought the kid to you, hoping to find her father. Him and I have a history, or at least his duplicates and I do."

"Get to the point so we can kick your butt," Lighting sneered.

"I need your help," he said, spreading his arms wide. He looked older than he probably was and up close, Titan realized he was perhaps only ten to fifteen years older than himself. 

"Why should we help you?" Titan asked.

"I just came from the 1960's where I think some of your friends are at. They managed to slow him down, but now he's on his way. I sent my time machine souring into the past, but he'll catch it eventually." He then looked around, as if he expected someone to suddenly appear.

"Who?"

"Me," Parallax said as he slowly rose out of the roof. His costume was splattered with blood and his face was that of someone very, very tired. "More variants," he said, shaking his head. "I have half a mind to just leave all of you here and get on with my mission," he told them as he came to a rest on the roof.

"Great Hera," Titan whispered as he beheld the former Green Lantern. His mother had told him about the great Hal Jordan and his subsequent fall from grace. 

"You didn't really think I would be fooled by an unmanned time sled, did you Degaton?" Parallax asked with a smirk. He then turned to Lightning. "Ah, a speedster, almost a worthy challenge. Tell me, Jessica, do you think you can outrun the end of time, because it is coming."

"The hell it is," she barked, pulling the child close.

"And the young Andrea, the one who would have grown to become Black Robin," he said as he turned to Titan, "in your reality. A reality where your mother developed breast cancer after her Amazonian body became susceptible to disease after she gave birth to you."

Everyone was silent and he laughed. It was an evil sound, the sound of a man who had gone too far over the edge. "I know all about it, how her hair turned white after the treatments and she dyed it blonde. How she had to restrain herself when Black Robin pulled Nightwing out of the past and took him to the future."

He looked over to Lightning again. "And then there is your reality, which splits from Titan's when young Nightwing decides that a roll in bed with Jessie Quick is worth it, so long as his wife, Wonder Woman doesn't find out."

"Shut up!" Lighting cried out, pushing Andrea behind her. "So what? So you know about our lives? Where are our friends?"

Parallax shrugged. "Dead. As all of you will be very soon, one way or another."


	6. Chapter 6

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 6

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

Parallax scoffed at the idea that any of them could actually hurt him. He was beyond physical pain now and none of them held any emotional attachment to him. "Your friends fought valiantly, but in the end it was futile. They were temporal deviants trying to screw with my plans!" he barked.

"Your plans?" Per Degaton laughed.

The former Green Lantern slowly turned to face the other time villain. "You aren't even a good copy of the original. You have no vision; at least I could respect what the real Degaton was trying to do. He saw a world that needed changing and instead of just killing everyone, he wanted to use time to just make it right." He waved his hand a blast of emerald energy launched out, catching the other man squarely in the chest. "But you, you were a nobody, a temporal deviation, a what if! And somehow, along the way, you managed to corrupt the timeline of a fine, young man. Dick Grayson was a man worthy of being saved, of having a place in my new universe, but you have ruined that."

Lightning raced towards Parallax, sensing that he was about to close in for the kill. Unbelievably, he whirled and backhanded her across the roof. Only a hand from Titan saved her from going over the edge to her death. Parallax turned his attention back to Degaton. "Though I already know that you will be eliminated by my actions at the dawn of time, I think I will destroy you now."

"No! Jordan, don't do it!" Titan begged as he helped his friend to her feet. "You don't have the full picture yet. Things can be fixed."

"Yes, they can," he agreed, his eyes burning with a green glow. "Die, variant," he sneered as Per Degaton screamed. His body was suddenly covered in a shimmering emerald field and then he disappeared.

"By Zeus! This has to end now! Too many people are dying!" Titan said and he turned to Lighting. "Take the kid and run."

"What about you?" the blonde-haired woman asked. She saw the determined set of Titan's jaw and understood that he meant to take Parallax down. She wanted to explain to him that it was impossible, that they were facing a version of Hal Jordan that existed in their past. 

The power mad Parallax had traveled through time in order to reshape the universe and he had failed. Eventually Jordan would sacrifice his life to save the Earth from the Sun-Eater. At least that was the way it was in her reality and since hers was splintered from his…

"I know what you're thinking," he said with a smile. "I've got mom's telepathy."

"You can read my mind?"

"When I want to," he said and then he gave her a peck on the cheek. She smiled at him and she went to say something when she suddenly became a silhouette within a green energy field and disappeared. 

"No!" Titan screamed, turning to face Parallax.

"It is all for the best; the universe will be complete once more. The sacrifices of today will ensure that there is justice tomorrow." He then looked at the small child that was trying to cower behind a ventilation unit. "The greatest shame is that the children have to suffer; always the children."

"I'm going to kill you," Titan told him. "That is not an exaggeration, it is not an empty threat. You are going to die, Jordan."

"I could wipe you from time with a wink and a nod," was the venomous reply. 

The Justice League teleporter began to hum behind Parallax and, not considering Titan a real threat, the once-heralded hero turned. Nigthtwing stepped out of it, saw Parallax and kicked him hard in the knee. Unprepared, Parallax stumbled. Titan took the opportunity to let out a war cry he had been taught by his aunt Artemis. Leaping high into the air, his magically enhanced muscles brought his fists down with the sound of thunder. 

The blows should have been enough to crack an aircraft carrier in two, but they only annoyed Parallax. "You telegraph your attacks," he said as he kicked out behind him and caught Titan in the groin. The young hero went down. 

Nightwing wasted no time in getting his punches in, but now they had no effect. "Damn you, Jordan, I should have guessed you were behind this!"

Parallax blocked each blow with a casual wave of his hand; one hand countering two fists. His speed was inhuman. He spoke in a bored tone. "I am not about to retry my case before you. I was tracking a divergent time path and came across your children from different worlds. They are now all dead because they are loose ends."

"I'm not dead," Titan roared as he joined his father. Parallax used his other hand to ward off Titan's attack.

"Since you are about to be erased from time, it really doesn't matter." Parallax sped up his defense, working it so he could get a good solid punch in. Both Titan and Nightwing went flying back. 

Parallax started to move towards Nightwing, his hand outstretched. "I don't want to fight you, Richard. Help me and I promise you a universe made up of your wildest fantasies. I can bring your parents back. I can fix Barbara's injuries." He stopped a few feet from the moaning hero. "I can even save Donna."

A feral snarl escaped Nightwing's throat and he jumped to his feet. "I will not make a deal in hell for a little slice of Heaven. Donna may be gone but I will not injure her memory or her ideals by helping a madman like you! People die, Hal, and there is nothing you can do about it!"

"Yes there is, Richard," Parallax replied, a maniacal grin on his face. "I can make things right again! I can!"

"No, you can't, Hal," Nightwing told him. "You are as powerless as the rest of us!" He shook his head. "All of this is so confusing! Is Donna really dead? Is that my son? Is that little girl really my daughter?" He stumbled back had to catch himself. "I just want things to be normal again!"

"Only I can make it happen, Richard."

"As my old buddy Wildcat used to say, nuts to you, buddy!" Titan said as he kicked Jordan in the groin from behind. Parallax gasped and then fell to his knees. It had been a kick that would have leveled a skyscraper. Suddenly, the temporal villain fell forward onto his face.

Nightwing approached him cautiously as did Titan. Parallax did not seem to be breathing, but that probably wasn't so strange. "Is he dead?" Titan asked.

The former partner of Batman got down on one knee and checked for a pulse. He found none. "I think he is."

"Waverider, come in!" a voice said.

The time traveler looked up into the time stream, still not sure how the Linear Men were able to speak to him in that fashion. "Yeah?"

"Have you set that damn bomb off yet?"

"No."

"Dammit, boy! One of those variant Nightwing kids just killed Parallax by accident. Time is falling apart! Zero Hour never occurred!" The voice went on to rant about the fabric of reality being pulled apart and that the crisis had reached epic proportions. "Is there a reason why you haven't done your job?"

Waverider rolled his eyes and nodded his head. "I have another plan."

"Another plan? What the hell do you mean another plan?"

"Trust me."

"Trust you?"

"Waverider signing off," he said as he leapt out of the time stream and into a warehouse in Bludhaven.

"Well, aren't you about the cutest thing I've seen in awhile," Degaton said as he dragged Oracle out from behind her crate. He held her up by one arm and gave her a quick once over. "Yep, been awhile since I had a woman," he said with a lecherous grin.

"No…"

"Don't worry, toots; I'm a mass murderer, not a child molester." He threw her to the side. "Still, nobody would ever know."

"You have to stop what you're doing," she said, her voice normal. She was too scared to call upon hr mutant powers. She would have to handle this as herself. "Time is about to be undone!"

"I don't know what makes you think you know my business, bitch, but let's leave the time-travel stuff to the men," he said, giving her a wink. "Now, if you shut up and let me fix my machine, I won't have to do anything unseemly to you."

Oracle shook her head. "Your machine is possibly flawed; your repairs will not be correct."

"Who are you?" he asked, scratching his head.

"I'm from the future…"

"And you cared enough about me to travel to the past to save me from making a huge mistake," he said, the sarcasm heavy in his voice. "Let me guess, you're my kid?"

"Oh, God, no!"

"Sweet little thing, aren't ya?" He turned away from her and Oracle was a little hurt that he did not seem to think that a teenaged girl was worth his trouble. She was a powerful mutant after all! Didn't he know what he was walking away from?

He approached his machine and Waverider stepped out of a hole in time. Degaton jumped back, cursing. He reached for his sidearm, but a quick slash with his staff and Waverider successfully disarmed him. "Stop it!" he ordered.

"Fine! Piss on it! I surrender! Teenage girls, flaming men and broken equipment. I've had it!" Degaton said, dropping to the floor and crossing his legs. "Take me in, copper." He held out his arms, together, waiting for the handcuffs.

Oracle stepped into view. "Waverider!" she said, clapping her hands.

"Things have gone from bad to extremely bad," he explained, looking at Degaton's time sled. It was obvious that this person had come from a different reality all together. "You dimensional vibration timing is set wrong," he announced.

"No it isn't, jerk," Degaton replied. "78.6," he announced proudly.

"Yes, that's what it should be," he said, taping a small decal that had the set point written on it. "You have it set at 79.6, dummy."

Waverider put down his staff and picked up he bag of parts after adjusting the timing. "Come on, we have to put this back together. Oracle, Nightwing is outside. Stop him." Degaton looked at the timing setting. 

"No wonder the damn thing kept crapping out," he said.

"Shut up, we have about two minutes to fix this thing and send you back to your own reality before a super-hero comes in here to kick your butt!"

Nightwing slowly approached the building, wondering if this was worth the trouble. John Law had been adamant and Nightwing considered him a friend and mentor. He had to believe him, or at least go through the motions to prove the man wrong. He walked quickly over to a set of stairs; he would check to see of the door was unlocked. 

The door opened a costumed girl stepped out. Nightwing shook his head. She was cute in an odd sort of way and reminded him of Barbara when she had been Batgirl. "Dad! I mean, hey, what is up, jive turkey gnarly daddio," Oracle said, trying to remember how people spoke when her father had been young.

"You don't belong out here kid," Nightwing said in a whisper. "Did you see a man in there?"

She shook her head. "No, never seen a man in there."

"What were you doing in there?"

"Using the bathroom," she offered weakly.

"It's closed," he pointed out.

"Yeah, that's why I didn't go," she said. 

"Do you live around here and what's with the costume?"

She still could not find the courage to tell her own father about her powers. She was stymied, wondering how to get out of this situation when she looked up in the sky. Crimson skies were rolling in and black lightning streaked. Time was coming apart. 

"Now that's odd," Nightwing said as he turned to look.

Then there was a flash of light from within the building and the sky reverted to normal. Nightwing turned back around to find Waverider standing there. "Sorry," the time agent offered before slugging the hero.

Hard.

"It's over?" Oracle asked.

The Phantom Stranger put a hand on her shoulder and gave a slight squeeze. "It is never over, but an untold number of lives were saved because you believed."

"I didn't really believe," she said, the truth pouring out. "I just wanted to save my father. Look, I know that my reality is probably never going to occur in the real scheme of things, but it is my reality." 

She watched as the Stranger pointed out the time paths and how they were no longer intertwined. "They are all changed to what they should have been all along," he told her. "You need only close your mind's eye and you will see that."


	7. Chapter 7

Nightwing: Out of Time 4 – The Final Conflict

Chapter 7

By Christopher W. Blaine

e-mail: darth_yoshi@yahoo.com

DISCLAIMER: Nightwing™ and all of the characters and situations previously copyrighted by DC Comics Inc. remain the property of that entity and are used without permission for fan-related entertainment only. This original story, and all original concepts and creations contained herein, are ©2004 and the intellectual property of Christopher W. Blaine.

"Wake up."

Dick Grayson's eyes fluttered for a few moments as his brain tried to register what was going through his head. It was a voice, the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. As light poured through his lenses and forced images through the optic nerves, his brain suddenly came to life and he sat up. 

Sitting next to him, clad in a towel with long dark dripping hair was none other than Princess Diana, known to most of the world as Wonder Woman. Even though she did not wear perfume, he detected the smell of a Mediterranean morning coming from her. "Good morning, Richard," she said.

He looked down to see he was shirtless, but otherwise still in his costume. He was sore all over his body and there was a healing wound across his abdomen. Wonder Woman reached out and poked it with a finger, it both hurting him and at the same time, causing his mind to wander to places it shouldn't. "Ow," he said.

"It still hurts," she said with a smile. She gave him a quick once over and realized that he appeared very confused. "Do you know where you are?"

He looked around and finally it dawned on him. He was in his apartment. "Home?"

The Amazon smiled and stood up, clutching her towel with a hand that could crush steel. "We finished late last night and you offered to let me use your bed." She cast a glance around the apartment. "I've never seen a man keep so clean a domicile. I suppose Alfred stops by once a week."

"Actually," he said as he sat up, "I pay a cleaning lady." He shook the sleep away and then looked over at the world's most desirous woman, who was clad in nothing but confidence and a towel that had a large Superman logo on it. "Did we?"

She laughed. "Now, that is priceless. If we had, I would hope you would not forget." He blushed, realizing that he had made a terrible assumption. She seemed to read his mind and went into the kitchen, returning with s steaming cup of tea as a peace offering. 

He accepted it gracefully and asked her to sit down. She started to sit across from him and realizing her attire, took a chair that prevented him from being able to see anything he shouldn't. As she made herself comfortable, she took a good look at him. There was no doubt about his rugged handsomeness. He had the jaw and the chest (Gods! She thought, that chest!) that made him desirable, but he also had an air of softness about him as well. 

Behind him was a row of photographs and one of them, smudged with thumbprints from being held so often, was of her twin sister, Donna. "Do you remember anything? You took quite a bump on the head last night."

He reached up and cautiously touched the back of his skull. He winced; it was very tender. "Did you hit me?"

"No, but I could have. I mean, I asked for your help getting out of my costume…"

"What?"

She could not help herself and she laughed some more. "I'm so sorry, Richard; Donna used to tell me how she would kid with you and how serious you would get. You are so much more fun to aggravate than Batman." She took a deep breath to compose herself. "Poison Ivy nearly had you in bed last night…we were tracking her through Bludhaven…"

"In bed?"

Wonder Woman shrugged. "It seems to be one of her talents, enthralling men. She tried it on me and she is still spitting out teeth as I understand it." He chuckled and suddenly some images started forming in his mind as he started to remember. "Were we at a warehouse, maybe?" he asked.

"No, we were at a floral shop actually," she informed him, speaking slowly so that he did not become more disoriented. 

"I had a dream…we were married…"

"You and I? I suppose that it is typical. I often dream of being married," she confessed. "Submitting yourself to a union with another is a noble pursuit. I am surprised that you would think of me, though. Perhaps it has to do with my relationship with Donna."

He took a sip of the tea; it was spiced with a little ginger. He complimented her on it and then considered her point. "I don't know. Why were you here anyway? This is a long way from New York or the Watchtower."

"You asked for my help."

"No offense, Princess, but why would I ask for you when I have Donna on speed dial."

Wonder Woman's face paled and suddenly her eyes started to water. She was not shedding tears for herself, those had already fallen. Instead, she saw the face of a man who had somehow forgotten or merely blocked off the truth. "Richard, Donna is dead."

Nightwing stood up and set the tea down. "What? I just talked to her yesterday…" 

A door opened in his mind and the events of the past year, all from the way time was supposed to precede, were dumped onto him all at once. The guilt and the pain and the anguish and all of the hurt he had experienced over twelve months were loaded into a hypodermic needle and injected into his heart. 

He stumbled and Wonder Woman caught him, holding him up with arms that could toss battleships aside. He said nothing, but looked into her eyes and saw the eyes of someone who had meant so much to him staring back. He could not help himself; he grabbed Wonder Woman and pulled her close, but she did not resist, instead wrapping her arms around him as well.

Tears were shed and a soul poured out all of the pain it had never gotten to, all the while a goddess of truth held him, comforted him and shared in his despair. A bond was formed between the two of them, the Amazon and the orphan, a bond that had so many possibilities for the future.

And all of it was watched by Oracle, the Phantom Stranger's hand on her shoulder. She understood that Nightwing had to experience this pain; the loss of Donna Troy was a pivotal moment in his life. The currents of time were moving slowly now, waiting for some event to send them in this direction or that, but they were at least no longer being affected by the storms of non-continuity. 

From this point on, his life would be different. Maybe he and Wonder Woman were meant to be together; perhaps not. So long as time was allowed to continue the course that was meant for it, then the future was safe. The disruption had passed on, but not without it casualties.

This had been the point in time that the Gardener's reality was to be created, but because of Wonder Woman's intervention, it would never be. The hero who had not wanted to be one would never exist, not even in Hypertime. That reality was gone. 

Oracle closed her eyes, trying to focus on the small tributaries that flowed away from the main river of time, but she could not do it. "In time, your powers will develop to the point that you will be able to peer into the realms of the possible," he told her. "You are still young."

"Do I even really exist? Have I destroyed my own reality, as well as the Gardener's?" she asked in the voice of a frightened child. 

"The Gardener was never meant to exist; you have set everything right." The Stranger then removed his hand. "Except for Waverider. He will be tried and found guilty for his insubordination."

"No!" Oracle said, turning around. "That's not fair! He was just trying to save me! Trying to save everyone!" She started to cry. "We have to do something!"

The Stranger shook his head. "You duty is to return to your world and live your life. Maybe you are the future; maybe you are future that could be, but your existence is as important as anyone else's."

She wiped her nose on her sleeve, seeming more childlike as she did so. "I can't; I have a responsibility."

"Yes, to live." Then the Phantom Stranger smiled. "You will do the right thing."

She nodded, somehow feeling trust in his words and next to them, a portal opened. Through it, they could both see her bedroom in her own reality. It was pink, so different than the black and red costume she now wore. "I have one question, though; why are you so involved? Why did you even care? I doubt a little thing like the end of time will effect your existence."

He shrugged. "Do I have to have a reason? Should not aid be appreciated, no matter where it come from, so long as the cause of justice and balance are served?"

She smiled and reached up to kiss him on the cheek. She was surprised by how warm he was. "You are a mystery, but sweet. I hope we'll see each other again." She stepped into the portal and waved to him. "Good-bye, Stranger!"

Uncharacteristically, he returned the gesture. "Good-bye," he said.

"Mother."

"And what does Dad think about all of this?" Titan asked as he examined the newest recruits to the Justice League. Earthian snickered as he pointed to Black Robin and Titan found it annoying. The Red Tornado, whom Earthian was speaking with, remained impassive as he always did.

"You father is paying a heavy price already for your sister's existence," Wonder Woman said as she adjusted her tiara in her dark mane. Over in the other corner of the meeting room, the blonde-trussed Lightning was busy scooping up small pastries. The Amazon gave her son a smile. "I forgave him years ago for his indulgence with Jessie Quick, but he never has. It does make it easier to keep the apartment clean."

"I meant Black Robin, mom," Titan said. He was visiting from the Justice Society and had only recently been let in on the secret of Black Robin's existence. She was a clone of Tara Markov that had also been given a healthy dose of Dick Grayson's DNA. She had been meant to be used as a weapon against Batman, but the Batman, in his last recorded case, had discovered the truth and rescued the girl.

He had arranged for her to be raised away from Gotham, in her native Markovia, where she and her half-brother Earthian had become close. But she was also his half-sister as well and he was not sure how to react. "Why can't I have a half-brother?" he whined and his mother gave him a stern look. "I mean, as often as you and Dad are rolling around the shores of Paradise Island, I'd figure I'd have another sibling by now."

"Atreus Jonathan Bruce Grayson," she scolded. "You had better start using some of the manners your Uncle Alfred taught you and not the ones your aunt Artemis did."

"Mom," he said, an aggravated look on his face. "Artemis is my girlfriend, not my aunt. Yuck!"

"Hey, bro," Lightning said as she punched her brother in his wide bicep. "Looks like our new sister is feeling out of place."

"Mom seems to think she likes putting on the Batman act," Titan told her. The two children of Nightwing looked over to Black Robin, who was busying herself by examining one of the computer terminals. She had been requested to join the League by the Batman, who was now spending his days in luxury somewhere in Europe with his true love, Talia, the daughter of Ra's Al Ghul. It had been Talia that had been the final key in the puzzle concerning Black Robin and her sudden defection to the side of the Batman had assured his final victory over her father.

"Has dad spoken with her yet?" Lighting asked. Dick Grayson had involved himself in an affair with her mother when his wife, Wonder Woman, had been away on a Justice League mission. Before then, there had been some tension in their marriage and Lighting's mother admitted that she had taken advantage of the situation. 

In the end, Nightwing and Wonder Woman had reconciled and he had dedicated himself to raising both of his children as well as he could. The news that he had a third child had been quite a shock to him. He could not come and visit her as he had to stay on Paradise Island, where he remained at a youthful forty-two years of age. "He's tried, but she is scared," Earthian said, busting in on the conversation. He looked at Lightning. "I suppose we are related now, perhaps I could give you a hug in the European fashion?

"I don't think so," Lightning commented.

The conversation was interrupted as a black portal suddenly appeared in the middle of the room and a woman stepped out of it. She was tall, wearing a low-cut leather costume that left nothing to the imagination. Her eyes sparkled green and her long red hair gave the impression of fire in the way it seemed to flow from her head. The woman spoke in a voice that echoed. "Titan. Lightning. Black Robin."

Wonder Woman stepped forward. "Who are you?" she asked.

The intruder smiled. "This does not concern you, Princess Diana," she replied and with a wave of her hand, all in the room froze except for the children of Nightwing. 

"Mom!" Titan said as he rushed to his mother's aid. "If you've hurt her…"

"I have done no harm. I need the three of you."

Black Robin eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"

"Time has come under attack again. Once, many years ago, I requested your help and you came to the defense of humanity to save our father…"

"Oh, Lord, don't tell me he's got another one!" Lightning lamented as she made the sign of the cross. "Please don't let the sins of the father be heaped upon the daughter!"

"Amen," Black Robin agreed and for the first time, the two women smiled at each other.

"We have no time; we must testify at the trial of Waverider," the intruder said. When they said they did not understand, the woman told them that all would be revealed. "I am Oracle and I have come to pull you out of this reality…"

"Crap! Not a Hypertime thing!" Titan moaned. "Can't you get the Outsiders or someone like that?"

"And," Oracle said with a grin, "another of our friends is in trouble. Jade Lantern has appeared, but she is in the wrong reality and has been driven mad."

"Let me guess, she has the same father as us," Black Robin added sarcastically.

"We are the Children of the Night," Oracle told them. "We have a destiny to fulfill!"

"I suppose it's better than being the Society of Dick," Lighting joked.

"Hypertime sucks," Titan explained. "Something always goes wrong."

"We could be the Bastards of the Dark," Black Robin said.

"Aren't you listening to me?" Titan asked as Lightning gabbed him by the forearm. Black Robin gabbed the other one and together they pulled him towards Oracle. "You can't just take her word for it!"

"We trust her," the women said in unison.

"But I kissed a woman in the last adventure and it turned out to be a female version of Grandpa Bruce," Titan said, but his pleas went unanswered as he and his sisters stepped into the portal. "And you never get anything done all the way! You have to keep going back and trying to fix things!

"You always end up out of time!"


End file.
